The Relationship Between Age and Heart Disease

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In China also, we also saw this kind of gender skew so that it wasn't only older people, but it was especially older men who were getting this. And I think they're seeing that in a little bit of the data from Italy as well. There was some thoughts, especially in China, it may be related to smoking so that if you have more older men and they're more likely to be smokers, then maybe that's the reason why it is hitting that group so much harder even compared to women of the same age. So I haven't seen any tests of that hypothesis where they're kind of digging that out yet. But that definitely was one thing they were looking at.

This is a special episode of Mindscape, thrown together quickly. Many thanks to Tara Smith for joining me on short notice. Tara is an epidemiologist, and a great person to talk to about the novel coronavirus (and its associated disease, COVID-19) pandemic currently threatening the world. We talk about what viruses are, how they spread, and a lot of the science behind virology and pandemics. We also take a practical turn, talking about what measures (washing hands, social distancing, self-isolation) are useful at combating the spread of the virus, and which (wearing masks) are probably not. Then we look to the future, to ask what the endgame here is; Tara suggests that the kind of drastic measure we are currently putting up with might last a long time indeed.

Tara Smith received her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Toledo. She is currently Professor of Epidemiology at the Kent State University College of Public Health. She has researched and written extensively about diseases such as ebola and MRSA. She is an active science communicator, and writes regular columns for SELF magazine.

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